[Updated] AT&T Conditional Call Forwarding stopped working for Google Voice? Here's what you need to know

Update 04/07/24: According to a product expert, Google’s engineering team has resolved this issue, something several other users have also confirmed. If affected, you might want to test again to see if AT&T CFF is now successfully forwarding calls to your Google Voice voicemail.

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Original article follows:

Several AT&T wireless customers have reported an issue where conditional call forwarding to Google Voice numbers has stopped working properly in recent months. The problem seems to prevent calls from being forwarded to Google Voice voicemail when the call goes unanswered or is declined.

According to user reports on Google’s support forums, Reddit, and AT&T forums, the conditional call forwarding issue with Google Voice numbers emerged around March 2024 for some AT&T customers. When a call is not answered or rejected, instead of forwarding to the set Google Voice number for voicemail, the call appears to be immediately disconnected. Here’s how one user described the problem:

I have conditional call forwarding set up to send unanswered calls to my Google Voice number for voicemail. But sometime around March, it just stopped working for the Google Voice number while still forwarding fine to other AT&T numbers.

While unconditional call forwarding to Google Voice seems unaffected, multiple customers have raised the conditional forwarding issue across various AT&T support channels without a clear resolution so far.

A Google product expert has escalated the matter to the Google Voice engineering team and requested affected users to provide specific examples and details, including:

• Confirmation they are posting from the account with the Google Voice number.
• The last 4 digits of their Google Voice number.
• Date/time the issue first occurred.
• Recent examples of failed call forwarding to Google Voice with caller number and date/time.
• Explicit permission for engineers to examine their account.

Google states that very recent examples are crucial, as call records are not retained for long periods.

Neither AT&T nor Google has provided an official statement on the potential cause or a timeline for a fix at this point. Customers continuing to face issues with conditional call forwarding to Google Voice numbers are encouraged to supply the requested details to help the engineering teams investigate further.

As this appears to be an increasing pain point for a subset of AT&T wireless customers relying on Google Voice for voicemail, a resolution will likely be welcomed by those affected. I wasn’t able to find any workarounds for the bug. Thus, you might just have to wait for AT&T or Google to resolve the problem. I’ll keep an eye out for any developments on the matter and will post an update if there are any updates from the carrier or Google.